If you have read my previous blogs you know that exercise is the true Fountain of Youth, but did you know that exercise also gives you stronger immunity? Ever notice that people who work out regularly tend to get fewer colds and bouts of flu than those who avoid the gym?

Every time you exercise, it puts stress on your entire body, stimulating the release of certain immune system hormones and chemicals. If you exercise moderately on a regular basis, you’re able to maintain a higher level of immune activity. When you exercise you also increase your circulation and your blood flow throughout your body. The components of your immune system are also better circulated, which means your immune system has a better chance of finding an illness before it spreads.

Are you afraid of having to do lots of real strenuous exercise?

The good news is that you actually shouldn’t. If you exercise too much, this has a negative effect, increasing inflammation and eventually suppressing the immune system.

Do you want more good news? This is not a lifetime of exercise needed to get immunity results. The response of your immune system to a single physical workout is intense enough to supercharge the effects of a pneumonia or influenza vaccine, particularly in the elderly, who tend to have weaker immune systems to begin with. Exercise regularly, and those vaccines are more likely to work in you. With or without a vaccine, physical activity significantly reduces your risk of developing an infection, studies find, such as upper respiratory tract infections like colds and bronchitis, as well as pneumonia. And remember, we aren’t talking about training for a marathon here, but something as gentle as the ancient Chinese martial art of Tai chi can boost your immune system enough that it can better fight of the viruses.

But how much exercise is enough? The correct amount of exercise to keep your immunity strong is 30 minutes worth of exercise three days a week.

Exercise is great to ward off the everyday cold and flu, but what about more serious ailments?

Exercise is Preventive Medicine. It prevents Obesity and diabetes, reduces stress, and lowers your blood pressure. Maintaining a fitness regimen can also go a long way toward warding off a stroke. Inactivity can raise your risk for a stroke by as much as 20 percent research shows when compared to those who exercise at least three times a week.

Unfortunately, many fail to get sufficient amounts of exercise. Worse yet, a majority of people may still endanger their health simply by sitting too much. There is evidence that suggests that even if you exercise regularly, prolonged sitting is itself a risk factor for chronic disease and reduced life span. The trick here is to frequently interrupt your sitting in order to optimize your health and longevity. This can be done as simple as standing up once every 20 minutes. Sitting at a desk all day? Take a water break every 20 minutes. Set a timer if you have to. Most of the smart phones we care now have one, so the timer things should be easy.

Children’s lungs are more vulnerable to damage from air pollution and excess ozone than adults’ lungs since they are developing and growing. The result is a high propensity for lung-related disease for those with constant exposure to smoke and pollution. This was vividly revealed in a study that compared healthy children in a heavily polluted area of Mexico City against similar kids raised in rural Mexico. X-rays of the children’s lungs revealed that more than half of the city kids already had lung damage that may be predictive of future problems.

Another study shows that exposure to pollution for many years can raise your lung cancer risk by as much as 24 percent and can be as destructive as breathing secondhand tobacco smoke. In a different study that tracked 500,000 people from 100 cities for 16 years, researchers found that dirty air also increased the risk of dying from heart disease by 6 percent or more. The more polluted the air, the higher the death rate.Damage done to young lungs doesn’t get repaired by your body. But there is plenty you can do to keep your lungs healthy and to protect them against future damage. Achieving better lungs means improved. Better breathing. Delivering better-quality air to your lungs results in greater stamina and overall energy also.

Here is what you can do to keep your lungs in tip top condition:

Avoid smoke and Dirty air.

The only way to consistently avoid polluted air is to live far from heavy traffic, smokestack factories, and highly crowded neighborhoods. Not everyone has that choice, however. If you must live in a urban area, there are still many things you can do. Pay attention to the pollution forecast for the day, especially on hot summer days when there may be higher levels of ozone in the air. Explore better air filtering for your home. Take frequent trips out of the city. Stay indoors during peak traffic time.

Don’t smoke.

Tobacco smoke irritates fragile, already-vulnerable lung tissue.

Pay attention to lung health.

Call your doctor right away if you have chest pain or aches when you inhale or exhale or if you are coughing up blood. These, along with unexplained weight loss, can be symptoms of lung cancer, as can shortness of breath, a hoarse voice, difficulty swallowing, pain under your ribs, and/or swelling of your face or neck.

Watch for COPD.

See you doctor if you’re coughing frequently, wheezing, have frequent lung infections or have a lot of mucus. These symptoms can be a sign of a complex breathing problem that doctors call chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder or COPD.

Exercise.

It strengthens muscles that help you breathe.

Eat lots of fruits and vegetables.

The antioxidants can help protect lungs from future damage.

Learn to control your breathing.

If you have COPD, your doctor or a respiratory therapist can teach you how to relax when you’re feeling short of breath.

So as we have read if you have had lung damage when you were young, such as lived in heavy pollution, a lot of damage has been done to your lungs that cannot be erased, but you can take an active stand in keeping your lungs in tip top condition now to prevent further damage.

Another thing to keep in mind are the children of the world. Many of us don’t like new laws about smogging our vehicles, or the push to do more car pools, but we need to think about the children and the air that they breathe, because they will be the first to feel the negative effects of our increasingly polluted air. Something to think about.

If you love sunbathing or make an effort to maintain a golden -brown tan, you’re unwittingly contributing to the aging of your skin. Sunbathing destroys the elastic fibers that keep skin looking firm and smooth. That leads to earlier wrinkles, blotches, freckles, and discolorations. More important, sunburns contribute significantly to cancers of the skin.

If you’ve augmented sun-kissed color with trips to the tanning salon, beware: Using tanning beds doesn’t, as advertisements suggest, build up a “safe” base tan- it actually raises your risk for skin cancer and wrinkles. In a study from Brown University Medical School, researchers found that tanning-bed aficionados were as much as 1 ½ times as likely to develop one of the three common forms of skin cancer as people who don’t use tanning beds. Some beds put out higher levels of ultraviolet (UV) rays than the UV levels emitted by the midday summer sun.

Sun exposure, especially if your quest for the perfect tan has left you sunburned, damages skin in ways that cannot be repaired. But there’s plenty you can do to prevent future damage – and to spot skin cancers in their earliest, most treatable stages.

Here is a repair plan for your sun damaged skin:

Schedule an annual skin check by a dermatologist.

Your doctor will inspect you for moles, growths, and any other unusual skin changes. If they are spotted, your doctor will likely test a small sample to determine the nature of the growth. Ask your family doctor and gynecologist to be on the lookout for suspicious moles, too.

Always wear sunscreen when outdoors.

Keep high SPF (sun protection factor) sunscreens by your back door, In your car, in your purse, or anywhere else handy. Get in the habit of spending the 30 seconds it takes on the way out the door to rub some on your face, scalp, and exposed arms and legs.

Stay safe in the sun.

Stay in the shade or wear a broad-brimmed hat, sunglasses, long sleeves, and pants during peak sunburn hours, 10:00am to 4:00pm.

At the beach, wear a sun-protection water shirt.

Surfers do. They are the equivalent of a high SPF sunblock lotion, and they don’t wash off in water!

Get your glow from a self-tanning product instead of the sun.

Tanning creams and gels can give your skin a bronzed look without the cancer risk.

Know a danger sign when you see it.

A melanoma may be blackish/brownish with irregular edges – but it could also be red, pink, or waxy, or it could be a sore that won’t heal. Other warning signs include itching, bleeding, sensitivity to touch, or obvious growth. Basically, anything that doesn’t look right to you on your skin deserves to be checked by a doctor.

Sip Green Tea.

There is some evidence that polyphenols in green tea may protect your cells against cancer-causing sun damage.​I am unfortunately one of those ones that spent too much time in tanning salons when I was young. Being blond and blue eyed I have many of the risk factor for skin cancer so all these rules above I need to follow myself. How should I or you start? Well, start with one and once you have mastered it work on to the next one. To bite off a little bit at a time insures that you have an easier time sticking with something and lots of little bites or step eventually leads to mastery!

When you talk about your arteries, you have to first start with the question: What is Cholesterol? Most people think cholesterol is a fat, but it’s actually a sterol which is a waxy, fatlike substance with a ringed structure not found in true fats. Cholesterol can combine with fat, calcium, and other substances in the blood to form plaque. Plaque then slowly builds up and hardens in the arteries, causing them to narrow. This buildup of plaque, a condition called atherosclerosis, can lead to heart disease, heart attack and stroke.

A single fistful of almonds packs a whopping 9 grams of monounsaturated fat to help slash bad cholesterol and boost good cholesterol. Simply choosing almonds instead of a doughnut or chips, or pretzels for two snacks a day could cut “bad” cholesterol by nearly 10 percent. Natural vitamin E in the almonds “meat” plus flavonoids in the nut’s papery skin help halt the development of artery-clogging plaque.

Avocados

In a study from Mexico’s Instituto Mexicano del Seguro social, women and men who ate one avocado per day for a week had a reduction in total cholesterol of 17 percent. The amazing details: While their levels of unhealthy LDL and triglycerides fell, good HDL levels actually rose – Thanks, perhaps to the avocado’s high levels of “good” monounsaturated fat. This fatty fruit is also full of cholesterol cutting beta-sit sterol.

Tomatoes

Fresh, sun-dried and in sauces. Eating seven or more servings per week cut risk of cardiovascular disease by 30 percent in a recent study of more than 35,000 women conducted by doctors at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The heart-smart factor? It could be the antioxidant lycopene or the tomato’s stellar levels of vitamin C, potassium, and fiber. Cooking tomatoes for 30 minutes or longer raises levels of available lycopene. And ¼ cup of sun dried tomatoes has more blood pressure-lowering potassium than a medium banana.

Salmon- Canned or Fresh

Among Omega 3- rich fatty fish, salmon is king. One serving contains about 1.8 grams of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), important Omega 3s that help cut your risk of deadly out-of-rhythm heartbeats; reduce bad cholesterol; cool inflammation and may even discourage atherosclerosis and the formation of blood clots.

Old fashioned Oatmeal​ Beta glucan, the soluble fiber found in oats, acts like a sponge, trapping cholesterol-rich bile acids in the intestines and eliminating them. The result is lower “bad” LDL because there’s less cholesterol to be absorbed into the bloodstream. A big bowl of oatmeal per day (about 1 ½ cups) could cut cholesterol an extra 2 to 3 percent suggest a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Make a commitment today to protect your arteries, and your heart will thank you for it!

We all know exercise is good for us. But did you know that exercising can actually improve your self-esteem and help you with stress management?

We talk a lot about self-esteem in our children, but what about our own? Self-esteem, or put another way, simply how you feel about yourself, can play a major role in your health and quality of life. If you feel good about yourself, you’re more likely to live a healthier lifestyle, to remain active, to interact socially, and to participate in community activities. All this works in a kind of circular way to keep you healthier. A study was done in overweight women who participated in either a stretching and toning exercise program or a brisk walking exercise program for six months. Both programs enhanced their self-esteem, although the stretching-toning group showed greater improvement. All the women, however, felt better about their body images and strength. The message? You don’t have to up your heart rate to achieve a better feeling via exercise.

Exercise can also be used to manage stress. There is a reason when people are told to take a walk when they need to “let off steam”. All that steam – or stress- triggers a chemical cascade designed to ready you to run. Your heart beats faster and harder, your lungs take in more oxygen, your liver releases glucose to provide energy for muscles, and your immune system revs up in preparation for injury.

If all you do is sit there, however, all that physiological energy has nowhere to go. Given the kind of chronic stress most of us experience, this constant ready-for-flight-with-nowhere-to-go response damages key body systems over time. It suppresses the immune system; contributes to bone loss, muscle weakness, and atherosclerosis; and increases insulin levels (you need more insulin to get all that glucose into cells), leading to higher levels of dangerous abdominal fat.

The solution? Exercise!

Just a 20 minutes jog or stair-climbing stint does ore to soothe stress induced anxiety than simply sitting still in a quiet room for 20 minutes. Not only does physical activity reduce anxiety, but being physically fit acts as a buffer against the damaging effects of stress, such as high blood pressure. We’re not talking a lifetime of physical activity either, just six months. In fact, such activities can do more to reduce stress-related high blood pressure than changing your diet.

Maybe jogging or stair-climbing isn’t for you? Here are seven different kinds of exercise that can heighten energy and provide stress relief:

High-Energy Activities

The benefits of aerobic exercise – like running, dancing, spinning, and in-line roller-skating – include an increased heart rate When your heart rate is accelerated, your body releases endorphins, natural opiates that make you feel good with no side effects.

Yoga

Yoga is an excellent stress-relief exercise. It involves a series of moving and stationary poses, or postures, combined with deep breathing. A mind-body exercise, yoga can strengthen your body’s natural relaxation response and bring you into a health balance.

Pilates

Pilates is a series of controlled movements and mat exercises designed to build your strength, flexibility, and endurance – all of which make practicing Pilates, an anaerobic (as opposed to aerobic) exercise, a great stress reliever.

Martial Arts

Practicing Martial Arts is a effective way to release energy, frustration, and tension. There are many kinds to choose from: Krav Maga, karate, Judo, Tae kwon do and more.

Kickboxing

Kickboxing is a powerful means of reducing stress. It involves controlled punching and kicking movements carried out with discipline. It is a great way to work out frustration – having an outlet to release energy and anger, therefore relieving stress.

Team Sports

Team sports include things like tennis, football, basketball, soccer and many more to choose from. It can be as easy and rounding up some friends or family for a friendly game. You get a double dose of stress relief from participating in team sports. Not only are you having fun with loved ones, but you’re also working up a sweat and releasing endorphins.

Outdoor Activities

Long-distance running, biking, cross-country skiing, and other outdoor activities provide a change of scenery and a dose of fresh air, both of which can help clear your mind. ​As you can see, you have many activities you can choose from that will all aid you in stress relief as well as your self-esteem. It is as easy and choosing which one is best for you, and pick a day this week to do it. The best time to plan is right now!

In as little as 6 months of regular exercising you will see Improved memory and cognition.

When you work out, whether it’s walking through a forest or lifting weights in a gym, you’re doing more than just strengthening muscle. You’re also stimulating numerous areas in your brain and central nervous system, each of which controls one tiny portion of the movement. Plus, you’re stimulating the release of a variety of chemicals, including human growth hormone (HGH).

Among its youth promoting benefits, HGH triggers a hormonal and biochemical cascade that releases brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a hormone that helps your brain sprout new synapses, or connections between neurons. One study of 59 healthy but sedentary people ages 60 to 79 found that working out aerobically for six months increase their brain volume, an improvement missing in a control group that didn’t work out. It’s probably why several studies find that regular physical activities significantly slows mental decline in people who already have Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia.

It’s also why the more BDNF you have circulating in your brain, the greater your ability to learn and remember stuff. The less BDNF, the less learning sticks. Another benefit: High levels of BDNF control appetite and reduce the risk of obesity. They also stimulate the release of neurotransmitters in the brain, such as serotonin and dopamine, that control mood and play a role in depression. Scientists suspect that these exercise-induced BDNF boosts may partially explain the benefits of exercise on people with depression.

Upping your BDNF Levels doesn’t take much. For rats, a week of running on a wheel is enough. In humans, a single high-intensity workout triggers results. Of course, the increase is short term, which is why regular physical activity is so important.

In fact, some researchers suggest that what we thank of as “age-related” mental decline – memory loss, some slowing of our thinking, etc. – is actually “revenge of the sit.” We’ve fallen away from our genetic tendency to be physically active nearly 100 percent of the day and the resulting loss of BDNF and the neurotransmitters it affects, including serotonin, contributes to our current high rates of obesity, forgetfulness, dementia, and depression.

Simply walking briskly for 45 minutes three days a week for six months can make a huge difference in the kind of mental activity that allows you to be more attuned to the world around you. It can even reduce the effect of a traumatic brain injury if begun two weeks after a serious concussion.​So start an exercise program today and just stick with it for three months and see what kind of memory, learning, and decision-making benefits you get from it!

In 1966 five healthy men went to bed for three weeks. They weren’t tired; they were participating in what would become known as the Dallas Bed rest and training study, a landmark study on the effects of exercise (and the lack thereof) on our bodies.

After three weeks of complete inactivity – the men even used wheelchairs to get to the bathroom – their muscle function deteriorated to the point where they could barely stand. As researchers later noted, the three weeks of bed rest had a greater effect on their aerobic fitness than 30 years of aging.

After the bed rest part of the study, the men completed eight weeks of intensive exercise training that included treadmill workouts and long-distance running. The results? They completely reversed the damage from the bed rest, proving conclusively the amazing power of physical activity.

30 years later researchers contacted the original five men, now age 50, to participate in a follow-up study. All had become sedentary, gaining an average of 50 pounds and doubling their overall body fat. They had also lost significant cardiovascular fitness. Not all that loss was related to the natural effects of aging; about 40 percent was due to inactivity.

After walking, jogging, or cycling five hours a week for six months, the men again completely reversed their age-related drop in cardiovascular fitness. Their resting heart rates, blood pressure levels, and hearts’ maximum pumping ability, or aerobic power, returned to the levels of 30 years earlier!

The message? It’s never too late to begin exercising.

Your physical strength, heart health, and breathing ability aren’t bottoming out because you’re getting older. If they’ve declined, it’s most likely because you’ve been sitting around instead of working your muscles regularly.

The amount of muscle you have affects nearly every function in your body. Maintaining good muscle tone, and you’ll probably gain less weight, have a lower percentage of body fat, and prevent insulin resistance. Your LDL cholesterol and blood sugar levels will be lower, and your HDL cholesterol levels will be higher. You’ll also avoid constipation, keep your blood thin and moving smoothly through veins and arteries, improve your sleep, and reduce your risk for depression and memory lapses.

It doesn’t take much to reap these benefits. Just a few weeks of regular, moderate to high intensity physical activity each day, and almost every health measure is likely to improve – no matter what your age. Sure, the benefits are greater if you’ve maintained an exercise program throughout your life. One study, for instance, found that people who took long swims three to five times a week delayed their natural physical decline by decades. In other words, while the swimmers might be years old, they had the medical measurements of 40 year-olds.

Particularly bad in the United States is that working adults spend little to one of their time exerting their bodies. Many don’t even get 10 minutes a week of vigorous leisure-time physical activity like brisk walking, bike riding, or swimming.

Don’t let yourself fall into this category. Push yourself off of the couch watching Netflix and vow that today begins the rest of your life, the day on which you will pull on a comfortable pair of shorts and a T-shirt, a pair of white socks, and a good pair of walking shoes and hit the sidewalk!

When your cupboards and fridge are packed with delicious convenient, healthy foods, eating the Long Life way is a snap. To get there, do this pantry makeover project. Here’s how to get started:

Supplies to have on hand

You should have a sturdy step stool so you can access high cupboards and hard-to-reach spots at the backs of shelves safely. You will need to have some trash bags and some Zipper-seal bags to contain messy items you’re keeping – or tossing. Cleaning supplies for the pantry shelves is also a must. Get a paper and pen ready because you will need to make notes about what you need to go out and buy.

The best day for a pantry makeover

The day before trash pickup, so discarded food won’t sit around to attract pests of go bad.

What to do before you begin​Clear off your kitchen table and counter tops so you have room to place things. Designate one area for foods you’ll keep and one for items you’ll discard

Clear out your Pantry.

As you remove foods from your pantry shelves, put these in the discard pile:

Out-of-date foods, as well as anything that’s dried out, spoiled, or rancid. Exposure to oxygen can make cooking oils and whole-grain products go bad even before the expiration date; give yours the sniff test and throw away any that smell stale or bad.

Processed foods containing trans fats and/or saturated fats. ​Get rid of shortening made with hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils as well as cookies, crackers, baking mixes, and store-bought cakes and other processed foods that list these oils or saturated fats as one of the top four ingredients.

Empty calorie snack foods. Toss them in the trash bag, When you snack for long life you’ll be eating crunchy, juicy fruits, vegetables, nuts, and whole grain crackers instead of high-sodium, high-fat, low-fiber chips, pretzels and crackers.

High-sodium condiments and processed foods. Toss or give away items that pack more than 20 percent of the recommended daily amount of sodium per serving (roughly 300 milligrams).

“Best intentions” foods that you haven’t used for six months to a year. That canned octopus and those ingredients for Thai cooking seemed like good ideas at the time, but if you’re never going to serve exotic seafood snacks or concoct an elaborate meal with coconut milk, curry paste, and fish sauce, it’s time to find them a new home.

If you are anything like me, you always have good intentions of making a certain recipe that you saw in a cookbook or magazine and you even went as far as to buy the ingredients from the grocery store, or possibly you have just stocked out on something every time you went to the grocery store and now you have a bunch of the same kind of canned olives sitting on your pantry shelf. If you have too many things in your pantry you become overwhelmed. Just think about if you only had a few important ingredients that you bought every week and then actually made the dish, how more focused you could be and not overwhelmed by too many options and too much food. It may seem like a waste to get rid of everything in your pantry. You did spend a good amount of money on it. But just remember how good the trade-off will feel.

Did you know that no multivitamin could possibly contain a day’s worth of calcium, simply because this bone-building mineral is made of big molecules that couldn’t be packed into a single pill small enough for human beings to swallow. Unless you faithfully get three to four servings of dairy products every day, plan to keep a calcium supplement on your shelf – and to take it. Research proves that it can cut your risk of developing brittle bones and of the debilitating fractures that change the lives of millions of people each year. Here’s how to buy and take this important supplement:

For best absorption buy a brand name of look for the USP symbol.

Calcium won’t do you bones any good if the supplement doesn’t break down in your digestive system so your body can absorb it. Usually, name brands, types labeled “purified”, and those with the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) symbol will be tops for absorbability,. The National Osteoporosis Foundation says. Or go with a chewable or liquid supplement.

Test it yourself

Wondering about your pill’s absorbability? Place one in a small glass of warm water for half an hour and stir occasionally. If it hasn’t dissolved in 30 minutes, it probably won’t break down in your stomach either.

Check for “elemental calcium”

That’s the amount that’s available for absorption in your gastrointestinal system. The less elemental calcium per pill, the more pills you’ll need to reach your goal.

Carbonate or citrate?

The type of calcium supplement you need depends on your personality and your schedule.

Both types work equally well. If you eat most meals at home and are already in the habit of taking supplements or other pills regularly, choose carbonate. It’s the least expensive, provides the most elemental calcium per pill (40 percent versus 21 percent for citrate) so you need fewer pills per day – and is vest absorbed when the stomach acid levels are high – about an hour or so after a meal.

If you’re busy, eat away from home frequently, or are forgetful, choose calcium citrate. It’s a little pricier, but It’s better absorbed on an empty stomach then calcium carbonate.

Remember the key with calcium supplements is to have it all actually absorbed by the body, or taking or supplement isn’t doing you any good.

Start with a comfortable 500 milligrams per day and do not take more than 500 milligrams at a time.

Your body can not absorb more than 500 milligrams at a time. If you take two 500-milligram calcium supplements a day, space them at least three hours apart for maximum absorb-ability.

Balance pills with food

If you have a glass of milk and a slice of cheese with lunch, you’ve gotten at least 500 milligrams of high-quality calcium and don’t need a supplement right now. If you have just a smidge of calcium at dinnertime (say, as serving of broccoli sprinkled with almond slivers), and you haven’t had much other calcium during the day, adding a supplement could bring your daily goal of 1,200 milligrams. Don’t forget – calcium fortified foods count too.

Think 500-500-200

Plan to get most of your calcium before dinner. That way, you’ll have time to catch up in the evening if you’ve missed a supplement or somehow had a day without many high-calcium foods.

Don’t mix calcium with meds that must be taken on an empty stomach

It can interfere with absorption of antibiotics like tetracycline, thyroid hormones, corticosteroids, and even iron supplements.

Hopefully these tips help you choose the best calcium supplement for you, and the best way to take them.

They're golden, they're beautiful and they come from fish! What are we talking about? Fish Oil capsules!​Fish-oil capsules are among the best way to get the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids quickly and easily. And those benefits are substantial. Omega-3 fatty acids can cut heart attack risk by a whopping 73 percent when consumed daily as part of a healthy diet. Omega-3’s can also cut triglyceride levels up to 40 percent. There’s also some evidence that omega-3s from fish can reduce stiffness and joint pain of rheumatoid arthritis and may also cut stroke as well.

If you don’t have heart disease, the American Heart Association recommends getting 1,000 milligrams of the two most powerful omega-3s EPA and DHA. Higher levels may work better for cutting triglycerides and easing rheumatoid arthritis symptoms, but keep your intake below 3,000 milligrams per day unless you talk with your doctor, since more could cause bleeding. Fish Oil’s anticlogging powers could be dangerous for people with bleeding disorders and those taking anticoagulant medications such as warfarin (Coumadin). Here’s how to buy and take these golden orbs of good fats.

Don’t worry about pharmaceutical-grade capsules

It’s reassuring to know that two major test of fish-oil supplements found no significant amounts of mercury in top-selling brands. That means that you don’t have to pay extra for pharmaceutical-grade fish oil: The stuff in the drugstore is fine. The one good reason to pay for pricier pharmaceutical capsules is that you can get all you need from fewer capsules (they’re more concentrated).

Decide on the dose, then find it on the label

Most of us could use 500 to 1,000 milligrams of supplement EPA and DHA per day, though some experts say a great way to up your omega-3 intake every day is to go for 2,000 to 3,000 milligrams. (Check with your doctor first if you take an anticoagulant). A single 1,000 milligram capsule contains about the amount of these two fats found in a 4-ounce serving of salmon. Since capsules vary in strength read the label to figure out how many you’ll need to reach your desired dose.

Don’t confuse fish oil with cod-liver oil​Fish oil is actually made from the bodies of fish, unlike cod-liver oil, which is made exclusively from – you guessed it – Fish livers. The danger: Cod-liver oil contains high concentrations of vitamin A; taking it in the same quantities recommended for fish oil can harm your kidneys.

I had been hearing a lot lately about krill oil lately. If you are unfamiliar with Krill, you can find them in the movie Finding Nemo. They are the fish first seen swimming away from a giant whale, and they all tell Marlin and Dory to swim away. (Yes, I learn many things from Disney movies!) I wanted to find out what was the difference between just plain fish oil and Krill oil. This is what I found out from www.consumerreports.org:

Both Fish oil and Krill oil supply Omega’s 3s, but there are differences. Both fish-oil pills and Krill-oil supplements supply healthful omega-3 fatty acids DHA and EPA. Krill oil comes from small crustaceans, not fatty fish, and typically contains more EPA. Krill oil’s omega-3s are linked to an antioxidant and other potentially beneficial substances called phospholipids. Krill oil in addition to the Heart health benefits as Fish Oil has been shown to also help people with arthritis by reducing pain, stiffness, loss of function, and inflammation. It has also shown to reduce PMS symptoms and painful menstruation much more than fish pills.

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Legal Notice​​The contents of this website, such as text, graphics, images, and other material contained here (the “Content”) are for informational purposes only. The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. The Content is not suitable for self-administration without regular monitoring by a qualified medical doctor in a supervised program. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read in our Content.